| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 17 |
Page 3 |
For example, a wife becomes an invalid. In the early days of her wedded life she was her husband’s true help-mate, his royal partner in all duty, care, toil, and burden-bearing. Her friendship brought back far more than it received. But now she can only lie still amid the cares and see her husband meet them alone. Instead of sharing his burdens, she herself has become an added burden, which he must carry. But his love falters not for a moment. He loved her, not for the help she was to him, but for her own dear sake. Hence his love changes not when she is no longer a strong help-mate, but a burden instead, which he must carry. His heart only grows more tender, his hand gentler, and his spirit braver. He finds even deeper, sweeter joy now in serving her than he found before in being served by her.
That is the meaning of true friendship wherever it exists. It is not based on any helpfulness or service, which it must receive as its condition. Its source is in the heart itself. Its essential desire is to help and serve. It makes no nice calculation of so much to be given and so much to be received. It stops at no cost which faithfulness may entail. It hesitates at no self-denial, which may be necessary in the fulfillment of its duties. It does not complain when everything has to be given up. It only grows stronger and truer and more constant as the demands for giving and serving become larger.
There is another phase of the cost of friendship which must not be overlooked, – that which comes with the revealing of faults and flaws and sins. We see persons at first only on the surface of their life, and we begin to admire them. We are attracted to them by elements that win our attention. As we associate with them we become interested in them. At length our affection goes out to them, and we call them our friends. We walk with them in pleasant companionship that makes no demands on our unselfishness, and that discloses but little of their inner life. We know them as yet only on the surface of their character, having no real acquaintance with the self that is hidden behind life’s conventionalities. Nothing has occurred in the progress of our friendship to bring out the things in their disposition, which are not altogether lovely.
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